David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, I present the Human Rights scrutiny report, Thirty-eighth report of the 44th Parliament, and the committee's Annual report 2013-14.

Ordered that the reports be printed.

I seek leave to have the tabling statement incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The statement read as follow s—

I rise to speak to the tabling of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights' Thirty-eighth Report of the 44th Parliament.

The committee's report examines the compatibility of bills and legislative instruments with Australia's human rights obligations. This report considers bills introduced into the Parliament from 18 to 19 April 2016 and legislative instruments received from 18 March to 14 April 2016. The report also includes the committee's consideration of three responses to matters raised in previous reports.

One new bill is assessed as not raising human rights concerns and the committee will seek a further response from the legislation proponent in relation to one bill. The committee has also concluded its examination of one bill and two regulations.

This report includes consideration of the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016. The bill sought to repeal the Road Safety Remuneration Act 2012 in order to abolish the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal and all orders made by the tribunal. By abolishing the tribunal and repealing its orders, the bill engages and limits the right to just and favourable conditions of work by removing the minimum protections provided by the tribunal and its orders. The statement of compatibility for the bill acknowledges that the bill may limit the right to just and favourable conditions of work and states that the bill was necessary to prevent any unnecessary and irreversible negative impact on the road transport industry caused by the tribunal and its orders.

The committee considered that removing a negative economic impact on owner drivers and small transport operators may be a legitimate objective for the purposes of international human rights law. However, more information as to the nature and extent of the negative economic impact is required and, accordingly, the committee will write to the Minister for Employment for more information.

This report also concludes the committee's consideration of the Building Code (Fitness for Work/Alcohol and Other Drugs in the Workplace) Amendment Instrument 2015. The instrument requires building contractors on certain building projects, to which the Commonwealth is making a significant contribution, to have a policy to manage alcohol and drugs in their workplace.

The committee recognises the importance of ensuring that building and construction workplaces are drug and alcohol-free, and that random drug and alcohol testing is an important deterrent. The committee, however, sought more information as to the safeguards that exist as part of the alcohol and drug testing regime to protect the right to privacy. The Minister's response did not provide information on this point. The committee's report notes that the Australian Border Force (Alcohol and Drug Tests) Rule 2015, which sets out the rules for alcohol and drug testing of officers of the Australian Border Force and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, includes a suite of safeguards including that:

(a) the alcohol or drug test must be conducted in a respectful manner and in circumstances affording reasonable privacy;

(b) the test must not be conducted in the presence or view of a person whose presence is not necessary and must not involve the removal of more clothing than is necessary for the conduct of the test;

(c) if a hair sample is required, it must be collected in the least painful manner and not from an intimate area of the body;

(d) a body sample collected for an alcohol or drug test must be kept in a secure location and destroyed after a prescribed period; and

(e) information revealed by the drug and alcohol test must only be shared with individuals authorised by the legislative instrument.

In the absence of advice or reasoning from the Minister for Employment as to safeguards which are in currently place, the committee has concluded that the instrument provides insufficient safeguards to ensure that the requirement that construction workers undergo drug and alcohol testing is a proportionate limitation on the right to privacy.

Annual Report 2013-2014

I also rise to speak to the tabling of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights' Annual Report 2013-2014 which provides information about the work of the committee during 2013-2014, including the major themes and scrutiny issues arising from the legislation examined by the committee.

I encourage my fellow Senators and others to examine the committee's reports to better inform their understanding of the committee's deliberations.

With these comments, I commend the committee's Thirty-eighth Report of the 44th Parliament to the Senate.

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

The 38th report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights also talks about the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016. The haste with which the government got rid of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal simply defies any kind of logic. The Turnbull government tried to paint a picture of truck drivers, owner-operators who they referred to as mums and dads, suddenly going broke and they claimed, without any information at all in this place, that they had been inundated with concern from owner-operators. They seem to completely miss the point of the Road Safety Remuneration Act.

At the time, I recall the shameful way in which the Turnbull government, with the support of some of the crossbenchers, managed to repeal the act put in place by Labor. It is shameful that members of the Turnbull government thought it was something to cheer about. Certainly I will not ever forget standing in this place talking about the deaths on our roads, the deaths of truck drivers, the loss of breadwinners to families and the deaths of innocent people caught up in truck accidents, and a senator from Turnbull government stood up and called a point of order, and proceeded to make a joke about someone's hair.

For the Turnbull government in this place to think it was okay to applaud and cheer when this act was repealed is quite disgraceful. The facts are that many, many reports have actually linked remuneration and road safety, and there is no doubt that there is a link between road safety and remuneration. There is no question about that. Indeed, the Human Rights Committee report raised this as an issue. Certainly it is an issue. I have met with people who have been caught up in accidents—Western Australian people, people in the electorate of Forrest who lost husbands and brothers because of trucking accidents. These were people whose partners were not necessarily driving trucks, nevertheless they were caught up in accidents. I recall meeting with one woman who lost her husband. He had stopped on the side of the road to help someone who had got a flat tyre. As he was helping that person, a truck hit her husband and unfortunately he died. So motivated was she, obviously by the death of her husband, that she attended the coronial inquest in Perth and without any real information, she came to the conclusion that fatigue, pressure on drivers and so on were to blame for the accident that ended in tragedy with the death of her husband. She has become a really strong advocate in this area.

It is a shame that members of the Turnbull government, particularly Western Australian members, did not sit down with her and talk about this. In their usual fashion, unfortunately, the Turnbull government made it all about trade unions because that is their fallback position—when all else fails, you fail a trade union. Of course the Transport Workers Union advocated for safety on our roads. Of course they did that—that is their job as a trade union in the same way that many unions advocate health and safety. Of course the Transport Workers Union advocated strongly for safety on our roads—and I am absolutely grateful that they did that.

I know that Tony Sheldon, an official of the Transport Workers Union, has advocated long and hard for safety on our roads. Nobody could doubt Mr Sheldon's bona fides in relation to road safety. It is a disgrace, and the human rights committee does report on that. They say in their report that, despite the government saying there was overwhelming evidence that the remuneration tribunal was going to send owner-operators broke, the committee points out: they did not provide any evidence of that. Of course they did not, because there is no evidence of that. There is clear evidence that remuneration and working long hours do lead to fatigue.

I know my colleague Senator Sterle, a long-time truck driver—and a proud truck driver and a proud member of the Transport Workers Union—has told me horror stories of the very long hours and the pressure put on truck drivers to breach the standards which are put in place. Those pressures come from the big suppliers like Coles and Woolworths. We need to have a strategy that covers the entire chain, not just owner-drivers.

Owner-drivers are one small part, but the point the Turnbull government missed here is that thousands and thousands of owner-drivers are members of the Transport Workers Union and indeed did not agree with this action taken by the Turnbull government. Of course they took the action to be political. They turned trucking safety into a political opportunity. Not only had Labor said that we would sit down and be willing to talk to the government about how we could look at what decisions had come out of the Remuneration Tribunal; so did the Transport Workers Union. So it was not as if there was this wall of opposition where no-one was prepared to try and resolve issues that people raised; there was—there was absolute willingness to sit down.

Indeed the government had a very long lead time to determine there was a problem but they did nothing. They saw what they thought was a political opportunity. Suddenly, we had photos of various ministers in front of trucks. Suddenly, they discovered mum and dads and, all of this against a backdrop of shocking road fatalities caused by trucks.

There has been something like 25 deaths just this year involving trucks. For the Turnbull government, with glee, laughter and great cheering in this place, to repeal the Road Safety Remuneration Act is something that falls on their conscience. It is something that I will hold them responsible for, because they have not put anything else in place. They have just got rid of it, which is usually what they do, and somehow tried to beat it up as the Transport Workers Union's quest for membership. That is absolute rubbish.

So what if a trade union wants people to join? It is not illegal in this country—I am sure they would like to make joining a trade union illegal, because they do not like trade unions. Of course the Transport Workers Union, like any union, wants people to join, and people need to be free to join trade unions. There is nothing wrong with that, but you ask those opposite: it was somehow all trumped up by the Transport Workers Union. It was not.

I am very pleased to say that the human rights committee in in its report does refer to the fact that there are many reports which link remuneration and road safety. It also calls into question what evidence the government had that this was somehow going to shut down the trucking industry. That was a disgraceful comment to make when there are deaths on our roads caused by trucks.

We had a solution in place when every party to this act was willing to sit down and work through a solution. But, no: it was a cheap political trick by those opposite to stand in front of trucks and somehow think that that was going win them votes. It is not going to win them votes, because the widows and widowers whom I have spoken to know who is responsible and will absolutely not be supporting the Turnbull government's actions in this regard. It is shameful that they thought it was something to cheer about. They should be ashamed of the actions they took, and trucks will be worse off for it.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I cannot help but take issue with some of the statements made by Senator Lines in her contribution to this debate. It is disappointing that we would hear them in the way we have. We think back to the days when Prime Minister Gillard was responsible for the introduction of the tribunal. Even at that time, as I recall, the Transport Workers Union, Mr Sheldon and others indicated that the tribunal would be stronger, if it had industry representation, but then Prime Minister Gillard was not interested in that.

Then we move forward to the comments made by my colleague Senator Lines in the last few minutes about the willingness of people to sit down and negotiate. If my information is correct, it is the case that the government and the Labor Party—and indeed the TWU—were willing to sit down with the tribunal prior to it bringing in its order on 4 April; however, in fact, it was the tribunal that said, 'No, we will not speak to these other parties' before they brought in the regrettable ordinances that they did.

The question that I have, obviously, given the fact that the information available to me—and Senator Lazarus, I know, has an interest in this space as well, as others do. We all have an interest in road safety, particularly, as it relates to trucks—in my own case, of course, with livestock transport, with which I have been associated for more years than I care to mention.

More than 85 per cent of deaths on the road involving trucks were not the fault of the driver. Those listening to Senator Lines this evening would be invited to think that that other 15 per cent of deaths on the road apparently caused by driver error, or whatever, would be due to owner-driver I have seen no statistics at all to suggest that owner-drivers are largely responsible for deaths on roads involving trucks and employed drivers are not. It is reprehensible that somebody would come into this place this evening to make the case that we have to make everybody employed drivers on the basis that it is owner-drivers who cause road deaths.

Take the situation of the 35,000-odd owner-drivers who were to be or were affected. I am sure the likes of Senator Sterle, who was himself an owner-driver, and Senator Gallacher, with all their experience with the union, would know very well that if you are an owner-driver and you have mortgaged your home and your assets and probably those of your family to be able to buy a rig to run that particular operation it is highly unlikely that you are going to put yourself or your assets at greater risk than an employed driver would.

It was suggested by Senator Lines that this was just simply a gripe about unions. Well let's see what happened after 4 April. This case was presented in public, and I have never seen it refuted. Prior to 4 April an owner-driver in an agricultural area could go to a farmer—perhaps to Senator Nash's farm to her husband David—load some sheep on board and take them to the local market. It would have cost that farmer, Mr Nash, about $150 to use an owner-driver. Do know what the effect would have been after 4 April? In that analogy, if that farmer had used that same owner-driver, the fee would have gone up from about $150 to $750. But the amazing thing is, if Farmer Nash had rung a company which had employed drivers to go to the farm to pick up the livestock and take them to the market, do you know what the fee charged by that company would have been? $150. If anyone can tell me how the difference between charging $750 for an owner-driver and $150 for an employed driver in that analogy contributes to road safety, they would be a better person than I am, because there is no logic.

Senator Lines says there was no effect on owner-drivers. I was one of those—and I know Senator Nash was also one—who went out to the area north of the city early in the morning to meet with drivers. I drove into the city with one of the drivers, Mr Ian Haig, from Wagga. What I learnt from him was absolutely incredible. I said to him, 'How do we improve road safety?' He said, 'There already is a heavy vehicle regulator.' There was a heavy vehicle regulator when then Prime Minister Gillard bowed to the unions at that time to introduce the road safety tribunal. It already existed. I said to him, 'Where are the faults? Where are the errors? What can we learn?' It was interesting. The first thing he said to me was that we outsource our vehicle servicing these days, but industry tells us that as soon as a truck comes back from being serviced they have to check themselves to make sure that all of the work has been undertaken correctly. I say: what nonsense! I would say: we will license heavy vehicle servicing companies and we will hold them to account to ensure that when they release a truck after it has been serviced that, indeed, all of that work has been undertaken. That company should be at risk of being delicensed if they do not do that work adequately. In fact, the inspectors in the heavy vehicle space should be called to go to those servicing facilities—not the same ones all the time; they should do it on a random basis so that you do not form friendships—to crawl over those trucks, so that when the trucks go back onto the road we all know that they are safe.

For the first three or four minutes spent out there near the racecourse at the showgrounds in the morning—Senator Gallacher would know this very well, of course—this gentleman, as he was preparing to leave, had a board, and he was drawing lines. He had a ruler and he was turning pages. I said, 'What the billyo are you doing?' He said, 'I am filling in the log.' I said, 'To go from the racecourse to Parliament House?' He said, 'Yes.' I said, 'When does the log get checked?' He said, 'At some time in the future. There will be inspectors. If I have used a blue pen rather than a black pen then I could be up for a severe fine.'

In today's world we have kids in restaurants who take our orders on an iPad, and that order is immediately conveyed to the kitchen to provide our meal. Is someone telling me that we should not be using an electronic log that the driver fills in? With GPS and all the wi-fi that exists, it can be sent to two sources: firstly back to the trucking company and, secondly, to a central heavy vehicle regulator database. If that driver has been driving for too long, for too many hours or without a break that could surely be red-flagged both at the company and at the regulator immediately. What in heaven's name are we doing with 13th century technology when we have 21st century technology?

The question of safety does not relate to whether it is an owner-driver or an employed driver. That is simple nonsense—absolute nonsense. If the objective of the tribunal was to get rid of owner-drivers so that they would all become employed drivers, or they would go bankrupt, which some of them already had—and, regrettably, we learnt of at least one suicide as a result of the events that took place on 4 April—we must stop that. We must say that the greater good for the heavy vehicle industry is road safety. If driver fatigue is an issue—and it is—then the solution that I have mentioned here today is one that solves it.

Back in the 2000 I wrote a document to be presented to the heavy vehicle regulating industry at that time. At the time I owned my own trucking fleet. We moved bulk fuels—600,000 litres a day, six days a week—so I suppose I did know little bit about it. At that time I was so concerned that I put in place measures that could become electronic. I remember presenting that document to the industry and saying that this was how we could stop those drivers driving for too long a period across the Nullarbor or between our major cities. Why have we not learnt? But I tell you this one thing: it would be very, very difficult to prove to anybody that because someone is an owner-driver they are a greater risk to the wider community than someone who is an employed driver. Is that what we want in this country? Do we want to have six or eight major trucking companies where everybody will be an employed driver? There would be no owner-drivers; there would be no small business; there would be no competition—and we all know what would happen to happen to prices.

And that, in fact, was endorsed by the fleet manager of Toll, who wrote a very good article in The Fin Review the very day we had the issue about which Senator Lines has spoken. He made the point about how important it is to have an owner-drivers in our fleet, to have that level of competition, to have that opportunity for all in this industry to be able to contribute to greater safety on the roads. But I do have to say to you it is not a question about whether everyone is a unionised driver; it is a question about choice. It is a question about the opportunity for small business people in Australia to survive, thrive and expand.

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to take note of the report. A number of very salient points have been made in the chamber by both sides. The Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal was never about getting rid of owner-drivers, it was never about lessening their competitive influence in the economy. It was always about the ability for them to pay their fixed, variable and labour costs for transport and operate in a safe way. What has been characterised here, in a very polarising debate, is an absolute tragedy for the transport industry. There will continue to be people who will lose their livelihoods, their trucks, their homes and, in some cases, their lives, through unfortunate means and also through accidents in road safety. This was the first ever attempt to put a base in the industry, through which you could not fall, for the true costs of business, your fixed costs of business, the cost of putting a registered, insured and viable truck on the road—to be able to put fuel, tyres, oil and maintenance into that vehicle on a measurable scale, to get some reward for your labour and, dare I say it, perhaps even have a chance of making a profit. The Transport Workers Union has always been in favour of owner-drivers making the true cost recovery model plus some profit.

Senator Back made a good point about pen and paper. You can fly an aircraft from Bankstown to Adelaide and you can lodge the flight plan on your iPad. Unfortunately, in the transport industry you have to do it by logbook—and those logbooks are checked by up to three or four different jurisdictions as you move around the country. Owner-drivers face the awful reality, if they transgress a couple of times—three times in New South Wales—of having their driving privileges removed. They can no longer drive in New South Wales if they breach their logbook or incur fines and the like.

I return to the central theme in all of this, which is that safe road practice, driven from a safe recovery model of fixed, variable and labour costs, will allow people to do their job safely, safeguard other road users and continue to contribute in the marketplace. Senator Back mentioned Toll Transport. Well, a very good friend of mine has been an owner-driver at Toll Transport for 32 years. He brings his vehicle to work, he brings his fuel to work, he brings his rego and his insurance to work and he makes a modest income. His tax bill—and I think he would be embarrassed if I tell the Senate—is in the order of $14,000 a year. That is the sort of tax bill he will pay, and that is based on a reasonable level of turnover. But you do not have to be Einstein to work out that you can get a job as a labour-only employee and pay more than $14,000 tax per year. So Toll have a vested interest in making sure owner-drivers are in the marketplace—as do Linfox and all of the major transport companies.

What really happened here, in that purely political red haze of a double dissolution, was that a number of people got all excited and threw away 20 years of research which links pay and conditions with road safety. If you buy a brand-new car—and most of us in this place will be almost given a brand-new car—every two hours it will say, 'You've done two hours of driving, have a rest.' In every new car that is sold in Australia there is a rest reminder that says, 'You've been driving for two hours, have a rest.' In the awards of the Transport Workers Union, and in the normal practice of the industry, if you had a rest every two hours you would probably get the sack. You do four hours before you have a rest—and it does not matter whether you are tired or not, it is to get the job done. This debate has been purely political, it is extremely cynical and we are going to pay the price. The Australian public is going to pay the price. The economy is going to pay the price. For as long as I am in this chamber, I will come back and report on the deaths and injuries in heavy vehicle road transport as a result of the abolition of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal.

Question agreed to.